"Oh, how beautiful it all is! What a lovely world God made when He made--this!" Toni stood on the steps with arms outstretched, like some young priestess of a pagan faith welcoming the sun. "And why do we lie asleep in stuffy beds when all the birds and flowers have been awake for ages!" She pulled the big door gently to behind her, and then ran through the gardens and across the terrace to the big grey balustrade which kept the boundary of the garden from the towing path beyond. Leaning her arms on the stone she looked out over the shining river, and in fancy her spirit roved here and there--to the violet-strewn mountain slopes of Italy where she had passed her childhood ... to the wonderful, rocky coast of Cornwall where her honeymoon had been spent. At the thought of the Cornish seas she caught her breath. Those marvellous green billows, foaming in the sunshine, dashing against the cliffs with a sound like thunder; the gentler wavelets creaming over the snow-white sands in lines of lotus-blue; the pools, deep and limpid, where in the aquamarine water all kind of strange sea-creatures lived; the jagged, tooth-like rocks springing from the depths of the ocean, ready to destroy the passing ships; the still more wonderful lighthouses, rising, some of them, like tall white needles into the turquoise sky; the gulls, flashing grey and white in the sunshine; the salt scent of the sea mingling with the pungent fragrance of the yellow gorse, hot with the sun ... surely the Cornish coast was a very favoured spot, and the Scilly Isles, to which passage could be taken in a queer, cranky boat, were indeed the Fortunate Isles, cradled by the bluest, most magical, most romantic waters in the world! Thoughts of the ocean were indissolubly bound up with all Toni's thoughts of her honeymoon. Acting on a hint from Barry, Owen had taken his bride straight away from the Registrar's dingy office to Paddington, thence to Cornwall; and he would never forget the sight of Toni's face when first she saw the sea, lying purple and green beneath a stormy sky. During the long journey she had said very little, shyness enveloping her as in a mantle; but when the train began to run along the sea shore, so that the whole expanse of ocean lay spread before the window, Toni's face changed, her eyes sparkled, and she turned to Owen with a spontaneous expression of delight. Now, looking back, it seemed to Toni that never for an instant had the voice of the sea been out of her ears during all those wonderful days and nights. Its song had helped her to bear herself properly during the long hours alone with the man she had married. Again and again, when embarrassment threatened to overcome her at this unusually prolonged _tete-a-tete_, the sea whispered to her to take courage; and each night she fell asleep to its murmured lullaby.